He reached up to take her hands, pulling them away from his face. Her eyes shattered with grief, and he realized he’d taken too long to answer. She started to pull away.
He tightened his grip on her hands and pressed his lips to each of her palms. “I’m in love with you, too.”
“But?”
Tucker pulled her in, hating that he’d given her another moment’s doubt. “No buts. It’s a complete, unqualified statement and the answer to all the important questions. I love you. And if I took a little longer to get it out, it’s only because you cut the knees out from under my whole list of arguments, and I had to fast forward through the script in my head.”
On a half laugh, half sob, she wrapped around him. “There was a script?”
“Oh yeah. I wasn’t letting you walk out of here without throwing every reason in the book at you to give us another try.” He stroked the hair back from her face, hand lingering on the cheek now wet with tears. “What changed your mind?”
“Brody. I called him out on his mistake. He called me out on mine. Quid pro quo and all that. He followed me all the way to Tupelo and waited outside the testing center to tell me.”
“Your test was t
oday? How the hell did I forget that? How did it go?”
Corinne shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about the test, Tucker. I don’t want to talk at all.” Rising to her toes, she brushed her mouth over his. “I need you.”
Tucker skimmed his hands down her back. “Is your mom expecting you back at any particular time?”
“I didn’t know how long things would take with Whitney, so I told her not to expect me until the morning.”
“Then stay with me. Spend the night in my bed and wake up with me in the morning.”
She glanced past him, toward the clock on the stove. “Not a whole lot left of the night.”
“Then let’s make it count.”
He took her mouth, gorging himself on the flavor of her as he backed her toward the bedroom. How had it only been days since he’d tasted her? Greedy for more, he licked into her mouth. She met him with equal hunger, her hands shoving his shirt up and off with a hurried gasp before her lips came back to his.
Some dim part of his mind urged him to slow down, find some of the finesse he’d planned that night at The Babylon. But it was drowned out by a primal need to take and claim, to eradicate the distance between them. They tugged and circled until, at last, they found skin. Her breasts spilled into his palms, full and heavy and perfect. He took one taut peak into his mouth and her head fell back on a moan, the hands at his belt abruptly stopping. A quick glance at her face, suffused with pleasure, assured him he’d just temporarily scrambled her dexterity.
Not wanting the other breast to feel neglected, he shifted over, giving it the same treatment. At this, Corinne groaned his name and gave up on the belt entirely, reaching into the waistband of his pants and curling those strong fingers around him. Now it was his turn to gasp, to press into her touch.
“Too many clothes,” she said.
“God, yes.”
By tacit agreement, they released each other, stripping out of the rest of their clothes in moments, before falling in a tangle of fevered limbs on the bed. They rolled, touching and tasting whatever they could reach. When she rose up over him, her dark hair brushing the dusky tips of her breasts, he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
Corinne leaned forward to kiss him, tongue thrusting against his as she shifted to take him inside her.
“Wait.”
She froze.
“Condom,” he managed.
“Birth control.”
“Are you s—”
She put an end to the discussion by sinking down onto him. Her scorching heat closed around him like a fist, and Tucker cursed with reverence. Corinne brought his hands back to her breasts, using them to knead their fullness as she began to move. And, oh yeah, he could handle that demand. Her eyes stayed on his as she rode him. There was no patience here, only pure unadulterated need. Her hips began to piston faster, sinking down hard to take him deeper with every stroke. The glorious, erotic friction drove him out of his mind.
Her skin flushed, and she whipped forward. “So close. So close, Tucker.”
The sound of his name on her lips tasted like heaven as he clamped his arms around her and thrust deeper, burying himself to the root in all her wet heat and swiveling to rub the base of his cock against her most sensitive flesh. Corinne whimpered, a wordless plea, so he did it again and again. Tension coiled in his shoulders, shooting down his spine and into his balls. She cried out, her body clamping around him and pulling him over the edge. He came hard and fast, shouting her name as he spilled into her.